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The original Twinklestar Sprites for NeoGeo is one of my favorite shooters for the system. I love the goofy anime style characters and fast-paced, simplistic gameplay it uses. When I heard a sequel for Playstation 2 was announced I hoped it would follow in it's predecessors footsteps. I was not disappointed.

Story 8/10

Sadly my Japanese isn't very good so I was unable to interpret most of what is happening in the game's story mode. This game nearly had an English release in the US but for some reason ended up getting pulled. All I could understand was that you play as the new main character Time and fight the other characters in the game until you reach Mikoto who is posessed by some thing until you defeat her. It more or less follows the same formula that the first game did so I found it suitable.

Graphics 10/10

The cutesy anime style graphics return in Le Petite Princess while utilizing the PS2's power to produce some very clean, colorful artwork. I found it to be a great idea to maintain the art style of the original NeoGeo game while giving it the upgrade in only the smallest of areas. The new characters look great and old ones still do too even with the little changes they've gone through. Stages look quite nice and often boast a good deal of animated fantasy-esque things like waterfalls, animals, and floating castles. The in game characters, stages, bosses and powerups during gameplay are polygonal but look nice and seem to fit in well with the game's visual presentation.

Sound: 9/10

Not bad at all. I don't recognise any of the themes from the previous game but they seem to fit here very nicely. I especially like the music that plays during Mikoto's stage. It sounds very fitting for the final level. The other music for the most part all seems very relaxed. This area really didn't require that much work to stay faithful to the original and it succeeds.

Gameplay 10/10

You can choose between Story, Character or Versus mode(character mode being basically arcade mode in that you can choose anyone and play through the game with them). For those unfamiliar with the game, Twinklestar is a vertical shooter that pits two opponents against each other. You have to gain a large enough combo on the enemies in your side to attack your opponent with flames but they can still dodge it. This leads to fights lasting for a good several minutes but you can also attack with your characters sub weapons and also place a boss in their way with the boss attack. Long battles will also cause reapers to appear which can kill you instantly if you touch them but they can be dodged or shot down. Sub attacks vary by character and generally attack your opponent from behind, forcing them to stay on their toes. Boss attacks also depend on the character your using and generally place a very large enemy in front your opponent that is hard to kill and makes dodging all the normal flame attacks more difficult. Your normal weapon can also be charged and gains levels as you defeat enemies and pick up powerups but firing stronger shots depletes the gauge. If you gather a full charge and release a shot you'll get a boss attack.

Bombs are also available and behave like their typical shooter counterparts in that they clear off everything on the screen and give you temporary invincibility after using them. This can save you from situation where you simply can't dodge an attack. All of these mechanics are inherited from the original Twinklestar game save for the new Fever mode that activates when you destroy the correct powerup. In Fever mode your character will release a lot more flames for destroying enemies. Since I liked the gameplay of the old game I'm very glad they hardly changed anything at all here.

Overall: 10/10

This game exceeded my expectations in pretty much every way and then some since it has some nice extras. From the start there's a complete sound and artwork gallery from the game and after beating the game with Load Ran you unlock the Sega Saturn intro for the original Twinklestar game which is nice. After beating the game with the original characters Load Ran, Really Till, and Memory you'll get to play the original Twinklestar Sprites itself! This is an especially nice extra since the game usually goes for around $700 on AES! Highly recommended.

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